Myth 105b

Tama′ʻlĭ), a former town site on Valley river, near Murphy, North Carolina, the name being that of a former Creek town on Chattahoochee: Tomotley (Cherokee, Tama′ʻlĭ), a ford at another town site on Little Tennessee, above Tellico mouth, in Tennessee: Coosa (Cherokee, Kusă′), an upper creek of Nottely river, in Union county, Georgia: Chattooga (Cherokee, Tsatu′gĭ), a river in northwest Georgia: Chattooga (Cherokee, Tsatu′gĭ), another river, a head-stream of Savannah: Chattahoochee river (Creek, Chatu-huchi, “pictured rocks”); Coosawatee (Cherokee, Ku′să-weti′yĭ, “Old Creek place”), a river in northwestern Georgia; Tali′wă, the Cherokee form of a Creek name for a place on an upper branch of Etowah river in Georgia, probably from the Creek ta′lua or ita′lua, “town”; Euharlee (Cherokee, Yuha′lĭ, said by the Cherokee to be from Yufala or Eufaula, the name of several Creek towns), a creek flowing into lower Etowah river; Suwanee (Cherokee, Suwaʻnĭ) a small creek on upper Chattahoochee, the site of a former Cherokee town with a name which the Cherokee say is Creek. Several other names within the same territory are said by the Cherokee to be of foreign origin, although perhaps not Creek, and may be from the Taskigi language. According to Cherokee tradition as given to Haywood nearly eighty years ago the country about the mouth of Hiwassee river, in Tennessee, was held by the Creeks, while the Cherokee still had their main settlements farther to the north, on the Little Tennessee. In the Shawano war, about the year 1700, the Creeks pretended friendship for the Cherokee while secretly helping their enemies, the Shawano. The Cherokee discovered the treachery, and took occasion, when a party of Creeks was visiting a dance at Itsâ′tĭ (Echota), the Cherokee capital, to fall upon them and massacre nearly every man. The consequence was a war between the two tribes, with the final result that the Creeks were forced to abandon all their settlements upon the waters of the Tennessee, and to withdraw south to the Coosa and the neighborhood of the “Creek path,” an old trading trail from South Carolina, which crossed at the junction of the Oostanaula and Etowah rivers, where now is the city of Rome, Georgia, and struck the Tennessee at the present Guntersville, Alabama. As an incident of this war the same tradition relates how the Cherokee once approached a large Creek settlement “at the island on the Creek path,” in Tennessee river, opposite Guntersville, and, concealing their main force, sent a small party ahead to decoy the Creeks to an engagement. The Creek warriors at once crossed over in their canoes to the attack, when the Cherokee suddenly rose up from their ambush, and surrounded the Creeks and defeated them after a desperate battle. Then, taking the captured canoes, they went over to the island and destroyed all that was there. The great leader of the Cherokee in this war was a chief named Bullhead, renowned in tradition for his bravery and skill in strategy. 19 At about the same time, according to Wafford, the Cherokee claim to have driven the Creeks and Shawano from a settlement which they occupied jointly near Savannah, Georgia.